A five-member Alabama State Bar disciplinary panel has stripped former Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas of his license to practice law, concluding that the young inmates who accused him of paddling their bare backsides were telling the truth and that Thomas himself was “both unreliable and untruthful” when he testified in his own defense.
The panel’s report and order, which became public as Thomas appealed his disbarment to the Alabama Supreme Court, arrives at a conclusion strikingly different from the one reached in a Mobile criminal courtroom, where Thomas walked away without a single conviction.
A different verdict, a different standard
Thomas served on the bench in Mobile County for more than 15 years before surrendering his robe in 2007 rather than face trial before the Court of the Judiciary. At the peak of the criminal case against him, he faced more than 100 charges tied to allegations that he summoned defendants on his docket to a room at the Mobile County Courthouse, ordered them to lower their pants and struck them with a paddle. Prosecutors argued the young men were kept within the judge’s reach by lenient sentences and long probations.
Thomas was cleared of every charge, either by jury verdict or by ruling from specially appointed Judge Claud Nielson of Demopolis. The bar proceeding was a separate matter with a separate standard of proof, and the panel that heard it reached the opposite result.
The disciplinary board — hearing officer Billy Bedsole, along with James R. Pratt III, Phillip W. McCallum, Christy Crow and non-lawyer member Leon Garrett — met in a closed hearing in the ceremonial courtroom at the Mobile County Courthouse on Feb. 22. It found the evidence “clear and convincing” that Thomas had spanked and paddled criminal defendants appearing before him, and that the conduct had nothing to do with mentoring or discipline.
“It is clear to this board that these young men were coerced into complying with Thomas under the threat of being sentenced to or returned to jail,” the panel wrote. “Moreover, these spankings were not among those of the nature that a parent might give to their own child, but rather were sexually motivated assaults.”
What the panel heard
By agreement between bar counsel Tony McLain and Jeremy McIntire and Thomas’s defense, led by Mobile attorney Robert F. Clark, much of the record from the criminal trial was reused. The bar submitted transcripts of testimony from several of the accusers. Thomas submitted the transcript of a witness who said one accuser had schemed with jail mates to invent allegations.
Live witnesses at the February hearing included Thomas himself, Circuit Judge Rick Stout, Circuit Clerk JoJo Schwarzauer, state Sen. Vivian Figures, two of the accusers and a representative of the Mobile County District Attorney’s office.
Sen. Figures testified that Thomas asked for and received her permission to spank her son, and that Thomas later told her he had done so. The bar also introduced letters her son had written referring to the paddlings, composed well before any similar allegations surfaced publicly.
Thomas denied that particular spanking. But he acknowledged to the panel that he had spanked “up to five” young men while serving as a judge, that their pants and underwear may have been down, and that he may have told them to lower their clothing. He testified that corporal punishment could be effective under “appropriate circumstances,” but declined to explain what circumstances those might be.
‘Less than candid’
The panel was openly skeptical of the former judge’s memory. Thomas said he owned three paddles but never brought one to the courthouse; both Judge Stout and Clerk Schwarzauer testified to seeing a wooden fraternity paddle in his chambers.
“Thomas admitted to spanking minors and adults in the community on two to five occasions … yet, Thomas was unable to recall any of the names of the individuals that he had spanked,” the report states. “Thomas was simply untruthful in asserting that he could remember who he had not spanked but could not remember who he had spanked.”
In weighing punishment, the board listed aggravating factors including dishonest or selfish motives, a pattern of misconduct, multiple offenses, deceptive practices during the disciplinary process and the vulnerability of the victims. In mitigation it noted no prior disciplinary record and Thomas’s character and reputation. Under the heading of remorse, it wrote that it “does not exist.”
What comes next
Clark said the outcome was expected and described the bar proceeding as a bridge that had to be crossed on the way to the Alabama Supreme Court, which he said may not rule before the end of the year. Unless the high court reverses, Thomas cannot practice law in Alabama for five years, after which he may apply for reinstatement.
The findings land in the middle of an election year. Thomas is challenging Sen. Figures in the June 1 Democratic primary for the state Senate seat in District 33, which covers much of Mobile. Figures declined to comment on the panel’s report. Thomas did not immediately return a telephone call.